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RFC 8117: Current Hostname Practice Considered Harmful

In plain English — editorial summary, not part of the RFC

Giving a hostname to your computer and publishing it as you roam from one network to another is the Internet's equivalent of walking around with a name tag affixed to your lapel. This current practice can significantly compromise your privacy, and something should change in order to mitigate these privacy threats. There are several possible remedies, such as fixing a variety of protocols or avoiding disclosing a hostname at all. This document describes some of the protocols that reveal hostnames today and sketches another possible remedy, which is to replace static hostnames by frequently changing randomized values.

Document record

Document ID
RFC8117
Published
March 2017
Authors
C. Huitema; D. Thaler; R. Winter
Status
INFORMATIONAL
Stream
IETF
Area
int
Pages
12
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The document record above — title, authors, date, status, stream, area, relationships, DOI and errata — is imported verbatim from the public RFC Editor index. The “in plain English” section is editorial: written by The metasystema editorial team, not part of the RFC. Where the two differ, the RFC text governs.

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